Parade's End

The Concise Oxford Companion to English Literature | 2003 | 700+ words | Copyright

Parade's End, a tetralogy by F. M. Ford, now known under this collective title, but originally published as Some Do Not … (1924), No More Parades (1925), A Man Could Stand Up (1926), and Last Post (1928).

The hero is Christopher Tietjens of Groby, a Tory Yorkshire squire married to the neurotic, beautiful, tormenting, unfaithful Catholic, Sylvia. In the first volume Christopher agrees to take back his wife and to conceal her adultery; meanwhile he himself falls in love with a young suffragette schoolteacher, Valentine Wannop. The next two volumes cover his wartime experiences and his resolution, on Armistice Day, to leave Sylvia and make Valentine his mistress. In Last Post Valentine is pregnant, Christopher is making his living by restoring antiques, and his older brother Mark is dying; Sylvia eventually agrees to divorce Christopher. The subject of the novel appears to be the breakdown of the accepted standards of the old world and the necessary emergence of a new order.

Cite this article
Pick a style below, and copy the text for your bibliography.

MLA
Chicago
APA

MARGARET DRABBLE and JENNY STRINGER. "Parade's End." The Concise Oxford Companion to English Literature. 2003. Encyclopedia.com. 29 May. 2012 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>.

MARGARET DRABBLE and JENNY STRINGER. "Parade's End." The Concise Oxford Companion to English Literature. 2003. Encyclopedia.com. (May 29, 2012). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O54-ParadesEnd.html

MARGARET DRABBLE and JENNY STRINGER. "Parade's End." The Concise Oxford Companion to English Literature. 2003. Retrieved May 29, 2012 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O54-ParadesEnd.html

Learn more about citation styles